Yes, here it comes, this plucky little satellite, some say 4.6 billion years old, others claim less than six millennia and we can already tell it's eager to put on a great show for us here today.posted by boo_radley at 12:18 PM on June 15, 2011 [2 favorites]

During the eclipse, Google will also have a camera on the oceans, as they boil and turn to blood. On the wheatfields as they wither and die. On the cities as they crumble in chaos. "Don't be evil," for what is mere evil compared to these horrors unleashed which shall melt men's minds in their head. What is evil compared to what rises from the depths even now!posted by griphus at 12:23 PM on June 15, 2011

I love that it's sponsored by Transformers 3.posted by antifuse at 12:44 PM on June 15, 2011

The debate going on right now about the moon landing program and the relative sanity of the astronauts afterwords this pretty hilarious.

Astronauts are utterly nuts to begin with. They're just better at hiding it and pretending they're not. But you'd have to be a lot crazier than most to climb into a 20 story tall frozen stick of high explosives fully intending to light it off.posted by loquacious at 12:57 PM on June 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

A rocket can be defined as "a bomb with a hole poked in on end".
posted by Trurl

My youthful experiments in model rocketry proved the inverse of that is also true: a bomb can be defined as a rocket with a too-small hole poked in one end.posted by StickyCarpet at 2:39 PM on June 15, 2011

Lunar eclipses -are- like paint drying. The commentary was enjoyable, featuring astronomer Bob Berman ... who, like an astronaut, had to be 'utterly nuts to begin with' to take on commenting on a 4-hour paint dry - but did very well, especially when two sidekicks dropped in to toss the ball around. MORE!posted by Twang at 8:15 PM on June 15, 2011

The show is done, now the link is just pure spam. Not the best of the web. Flagged. In the future, let me know about these damn things in advance, so I can see them. mmmkay?posted by Goofyy at 9:45 PM on June 15, 2011

for those interested in the eclipse, it has already happened in the southern hemisphere.

A lunar eclipse happens for everybody on earth at the same time.posted by Pendragon at 12:29 AM on June 16, 2011

Nooooooooot quite. Because the moon and the earth are both moving, there are some spots that see action before others.

Lunar eclipses -are- like paint drying.

Yeah, the whole thing is. But still seeing a glimpse of one is cool -- I saw the one we had in the Northern Hemisphere back in....2004, I think; I was working on a play, and the theater had a terrace with a great view of the sky, and the eclipse was at its peak about a half hour after the curtain call so a bunch of us went out there for a look after everyone had gotten out of costumes and such. I just remember seeing the moon turned this gorgeous brilliant red color.

It was also one of the Red Sox/Yankees playoff games leading up to the world series, so there may have been a few Red Sox fans in our group who took the red color as a cosmic omen. But I promise we felt silly doing so.posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:19 AM on June 16, 2011

Lunar eclipses -are- like paint drying.

Yeah, the whole thing is.

Oh, I dunno. I saw a lunar eclipse quite a while back where the moon was pretty high in the sky right as the sun was setting, and the shadow of the Earth was creeping across the moon exactly as the sun was moving below the horizon, and I had this pretty cosmic MOMENT where it was completely obvious what the mechanics of the system was.

I mean... THERE was the light source, THERE was the object that the light source was shining on, and THERE was the edge of the shadow creeping across that object as the light source moved out of view from my vantage point.

The sense of there being three things involved and that I was on the middle one as it moved between the other two was completely astounding. And while I've been a lazy lay astronomer most of my life (Clyde Tombaugh used to have me over to his backyard to look at the stars when I was a kid), that particular moment during that lunar eclipse changed my life and worldview permanently.

I've had very few times in my life when all that astrophysics stuff was made so incredibly concrete and presented itself so perfectly. I have goosebumps just typing this comment about it.posted by hippybear at 5:18 PM on June 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

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